site.btaMedia Review: June 7

The possible outcomes of the June 9 elections in Bulgaria dominate Friday’s news media.

POLITICS

24 Chasa’s front-page article presents the results of a Trend opinion poll, the last before the June 9 elections. The survey shows GERB-UDF as the winner with 11.2% ahead of the formation in second place, which might be Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), Vazrazhdane or the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). These three formations have such similar results in the survey (15.3%, 15.1% and 14.9%, respectively) that the difference between them falls within the statistical error. Two more formations are sure to enter the 50th National Assembly: the Bulgarian Socialist Party (8.5%) and There Is Such a People (5.9%). Bulgarian Solidarity (3.4%) and Blue Bulgaria (2.1%) stand a chance of passing the 4% entry threshold. The daily has ten pages of articles about the snap general elections and European Parliament (EP) elections this Sunday.

Trud’s front-page story presents the election forecast of mathematician Mihail Konstantinov, who expects six or seven formations to make it into the 50th National Assembly. In the first scenario, Parliament will have 72 MPs of GERB-UDF, 42 MPs of CC-DB, Vazrazhdane and MRF, 26 MPs of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), and 16 MPs of There is Such a People (TISP). The ruling coalition will consist of GERB-UDF, MRF, and TISP with 130 MPs in total. In the second scenario, a seventh formation will make it into the 50th National Assembly – Blue Bulgaria or Bulgarian Solidarity – that will have 10 MPs. The ruling coalition will comprise GERB-UDF, MRF, and TISP with 125MPs, or GERB-UDF, MRF, TISP, and the seventh formation with 135 MPs. According to Konstantinov, five formations will win MEP seats: GERB-UDF with 6, CC-DB with 3, MRF with 3, Vazrazhdane with 3, and BSP with 2. There Is Such a People might also win a seat in the European Parliament. 

Capital Weekly’s main topic is “The possible scenarios after the vote”. According to the weekly, GERB will win the elections and will control the scenarios for the government together with the MRF. However, it will not be easy for GERB leader Boyko Borissov to form a cabinet. He needs CC-DB to make a government acceptable for society, but it highly unlikely that the coalition will enter the same formation as in the previous government. An official partnership with the MRF is mathematically possible but is hardly acceptable for Borissov. The alternatives – new snap elections this autumn, or non-party cabinet formulas – are not to be crossed out. The weekly presents bar charts with the results of a Market Links opinion poll, according to which GERB-UDF will win the parliamentary elections with 24.7%  of the votes, followed by CC-DB with 15.4%, the MRF with 12.3%, Vazrazhdane with 11.1%, the BSP with 7.5%, and TISP with 4%.  The first five of these formations are expected to also win MEP seats. According to Alpha Research’s latest opinion poll, Vazrazhane will win more votes than the MRF (15.2% as opposed to 14.8%), otherwise the scenario is the same.

Sega writes that there will be a gruesome battle for the second place in the elections, as evidenced by the latest opinion polls of Trend and Gallup. The latter was commissioned by the Bulgarian National Radio and shows that GERB-UDF will win with 25.9% of the votes, followed by CC-DB with 15.7%, Vazrazhdane with 15.5%, and the MRF with 15.3%. The other two formations to make it in the 50th National Assembly are the BSP with 8% and TISP with 6.1%. A seventh formation might make it in parliament: Bulgarian Solidarity (3.1%) or Blue Bulgaria (2.8%). 

On Bulgarian National Radio on Friday morning, Gallup International Balkan Executive Director Purvan Simeonov commented that it is unclear who will come second in the June 9 elections as well as who will be just over or under the 4% threshold, because the tension in society could erupt in any direction.  There is a series of small formations around famous individuals that are hard to predict, Simeonov noted, giving Velichie [Grandeur] Party as an example. The opinion polls indicate a demand for the new. The importance of the third option – Vazrazhdane – as well as of many other options is growing because of the dead-end situation. The outcome of the vote will be determined on Friday and Saturday, Simeonov forecast. According to him, more parties in Parliament mean more space for maneuvering. There are many possible combinations for the formation of a government; they will not be a matter of arithmetic but rather of legitimacy in the eyes of Bulgarian society.

On Bulgarian National Television’s morning show, Gallup International sociologist Yanitsa Petkova commented on what can be expected after the elections. She noted that despite the active election campaign, no serious change in people’s election attitudes has been registered. The difference between the first and second formation is some 10%, according to the latest opinion polls. Around 40.8% of those interviewed by Gallup at the start of June said they plan to vote in the general elections. In the previous parliamentary elections, the voter turnout was similar: 40.6%, she recalled. The expected voter turnout for the EP elections is slightly lower: 38.1%, compared to around 32% in the 2019 European elections.

On Nova TV’s morning show, political expert Dimitar Ganev of the Trend polling agency commented that the latest survey shows a voter turnout of 48%, meaning between 2.5 and 2.7 million Bulgarians will exercise their voting right in the general elections on Sunday. The voter turnout for the EP elections is expected to be lower, between 2.3 and 2.4 million voters. However, sociology cannot cover the days right before the elections, from Wednesday to Sunday, when 15 to 18% of voters decide who they will vote for, Ganev noted. Evelina Slavkova from Gallup too said that 15 to 18% make their decision in the last days before the elections, if not on election day itself. Therefore, the opinion polls cannot say who will come second, third, and fourth in the national elections, she explained. 

Also on Nova TV, Todor Galev from the Centre for the Study of Democracy presented the results of a survey showing that 70% of Bulgarians believe in conspiracy theories. “We were honestly surprised by the quite high percentages of people who believe there is a foreign power interfering in the elections. We expected these percentages to be high but not that high. It turns out that people believe a foreign country is interfering in Bulgarian politics to manipulate the election results for both the national and European parliaments,” he noted. In his words, Bulgarian suspect the US government of interfering, followed by the European Commission. A large part of Bulgarians think the Commission influences the results of elections here, Galev specified.

On bTV’s morning show, Continue the Change co-leader Kiril Petkov commented that his formation will not be part of a government with GERB-UDF a second time, because the voters do not want that. There is a fundamental deal between Borissov and MRF leader Delyan Peevski: Peevski holds the prosecution service and security services and guarantees to Borissov that he can be calm while there are no reforms. In turn, Borissov holds the votes in Parliament, which guarantees to Peevski that there will not be reforms and he will keep his control. “We will not be part of the deal where Borissov and Peevski are in a coalition and are looking for a third partner to add some colour,” Petkov said. GERB Deputy Chairman Daniel Mitov in turn told bTV that his party will not allow any more experiments and trampling on the rules of democracy. In his words, the previous government was an experiment with rotating prime ministers and ministers coming from who knows where. GERB will lean towards the classics, Mitov noted, adding that there will be negotiations and an agreement signed on forming a coalition government, with specific goals for the State set and ministers listed who have the public trust and can pursue those goals through political will. 

ECONOMY

Trud has an interview with Engineer Ivan Mitev, Executive Director of the Bulgarian Chamber of Mining and Geology, who talks about the role of the mineral industry in Bulgaria’s economy. If the mines in the country get closed, that would  threaten technological progress, he argues. He also comments on the European Critical Raw Materials Act.

An analysis in Capital Weekly reads that what is happening with the State-owned coal-fired thermal power plants Maritsa East 2 and Maritsa East Mines sounds absurd but is a fact: they work a little, the electricity they produce is expensive, but at the end they have a guaranteed market for their production and money for salaries. When their electricity cannot be sold on the market, since the plants stand no chance with the competitive principle in effect, they will be selling to household consumers to survive. Thus, tax payers will once again save these plants, which is far from any optimization or restructuring despite the workload being below 20%.  However, once household consumers enter the free electricity market, there will be no more privileges for the coal-fired plants; to remain on the market are only those working based on the competitive principle, with good prices. Everyone else will have to find other market niches and professions, the analysis reads. 

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24 Chasa has an interview with Prof Ivan Milanov, Executive Director of the St Naum University Hospital for Active Treatment in Neurology and Psychiatry, who talks about the latest positive developments in the field of neurology.

Trud has an interview with Andrey Markov, Management Board member of the Bulgarian Hospital Association, who comments on a Constitutional Court ruling of April 11 deeming unconstitutional the operational limits in hospitals. Now hospitals should receive the money the National Health Insurance Fund owns them for the activities exceeding those limits, but that would leave the budget with a gaping hole of at least BGN 100 million. Markov, who the daily describes as one of the good financial experts in healthcare, comments how the issue could be solved without patients paying the price. According to him, the solution lies in upgrading the healthcare system with the introduction of compulsory health insurance.

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Capital Weekly has an interview with Keiji Seki [name might be misspelled], general manager of the marketing unit for fermented products in the global yogurt sales division of Meiji Co, a Japanese company selling Bulgarian yogurt since 1973. He tells the weekly that the company sells some 1.5 million units of Bulgarian yogurt a day worth around BGN 800 million a year. Bulgarian yogurt was presented to Meiji for the first time at a world expo in Osaka in April 1970. It has been proven that 100 grammes of Bulgarian yogurt a day helps balance intestinal bacteria and maintain good digestive health. Under the current contract between the Japanese company and Bulgaria’s State-owned dairy company LB Bulgaricum, the two sides’ researchers communicate with each other through short-term business trips, if needed. Meiji is planning to send a researcher to Bulgaria for a short-term joint research with LB Bulgaricum in the future, he says. At the moment, the two companies are discussing an agreement for the launch of a joint research institute by the end of the 2024 financial year. The goal is to find new scientific proof of the health benefits of Bulgarian yogurt, he explains.

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Telegraf has an interview with meteorologist Tsvetelina Dimitrova, who says Bulgaria will have hot weather for one more week, with temperatures forecast to rise further. Hailstorms are possible, she warns. 

CULTURE

The main topic of the Bulgarian National Television’s morning show is “What is the strategy for culture’s development?” Caretaker Culture Minister Nayden Todorov talks about the State’s actions to potentially purchase the house of writer Dimitar Talev in Prilep, North Macedonia. “Shouldn’t there be a policy on preserving the buildings outside of Bulgaria’s territory that are connected with our history and culture? There should, but there is no such legislation whatsoever,” he said. The institution that should be caring for Bulgaria’s monuments of culture used to have 1,500 employees years ago, but now they number 56, when the monuments are tens f thousands. The National Institute for Immovable Cultural Heritage used to have regional offices caring for the monuments of local importance, but now the Institute is housed in the Culture Ministry, Todorov explained.

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24 Chasa has an interview with Sofia Opera and Ballet Director Plamen Kartalov, who tells the daily that when he was in Skopje for Sofia Opera and Ballet's performance of Wagner's Die Walküre on May 18, his meeting with President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova left him impressed. In his words, she showed respect and competence as an opera fan.